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KIRKUS REVIEW

A soulful fictional homage to a
beloved Antarctic vessel, from Australian author Parrett (Past theShallows,
2014).

The red-hulled Antarctic supply
ship Nella Dan, like its fictional counterpart, was decommissioned
and sunk in the mid-1980s after running aground on the sub-Antarctic island of
Macquarie. In Parrett’s second novel, the Nella Dan brings
together, however temporarily, a broken Australian family and a Danish sailor.
Teenager Isla, her unnamed younger brother and her mother (known only as Mum)
move to Hobart, Tasmania. The implication is that Mum has left the children’s
father. (The precise nature of the domestic difficulties will emerge but is not
the main focus here.) Watching as Nella Dan docks in Hobart,
Isla notices a man on deck waving to her. From there, a series of vignettes
narrated in turn by Isla and the man who waved—Bo, the ship's chief cook—reveal
in small, earthy details how kind people can be. Somehow Bo meets Mum, and
while he's in port, he tries to be a father to her children. He shows them how
to shell walnuts with a pocketknife, introduces them to the warm delights
of Nella Dan’s kitchen,
gives Mum cooking tips, and encourages Isla, as she enters high school, to
pursue science. From the ship’s logs we learn the progress of the Nella
Dan as she transports personnel to and from an Antarctic research
station, making frequent stops in Hobart, and spends weeks trapped in ice.
Although all hands survive Nella Dan’s final mishap, she is
scuttled by her owners. Bo—who, like his father before
him, joined Nella Dan’s crew as a teenager—is a gentle giant, and
Mum, though apparently grateful for the help and companionship, is too damaged
by her history to let him join her family. All these facts are approached
obliquely, without any trace of sentimentality. Although the specter of child endangerment
does arise—the brother is menaced by a white van, a young schoolmate is hit by
a car—Parrett’s emphasis is on the opposite: child nurturing in whatever
unexpected guise it may occur.

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